July 20, 1994 - Penang - Journal

Knocking the door by the Chinese desk clerk of the Swiss Hotel. Danny tells me that I have a phone call. It's 8:21 a.m. I had difficulty getting to sleep last night. For some reason garlic keeps me awake. I got out of bed wrapped the towel around my waist and walk down the corridor to the front desk. I picked up the phone. My father's voice came from watch it pond and distant Maine. The signal bouncing off a satellite to low outer space to reach the other side of the world in Malaysia. I'm happy to hear him call.

later afternoon

Howard and I were speaking in the breakfast room. Howard is a Canadian Jew, researching The Tribe's history in Malaysia. the first recorded presence dated back to the 17th Century and the population peaked at the tutn of the century. Jalan Zainal Abidin was once known as Jehudi Jalan or Jew Street. Never many, post-war the Jewish community shurnk to under the minyan for the now-definct temple. I've nicknamed him Study Kravitz. Walter, a Guyana Hindu, lives down the hotel's first-floor hallway. Howard and I both know about Walter's increasingly difficult romantic relationship with a high-caste. He and his beloved met at university in Toronto. Love in Canada. Last night he met his girlfriend's wealthy Eurasian father. Walter is a dark-skinned Dalit from the untouchable caste.

"Not good."

His response was so soft as to be almost inaudible . Having no friends in Penang he had no choice but to tell us what had happened the previous evening. Two strangers. Older strangers were like confession to ghosts. His story was as sad as Romeo and Juliet.

Walter had gone to University in Toronto where he met and fell in love with Bridget, a Malay national of Sino/Hindu descent. White skin. Walter is very black. They were very much in love and had been living together for five years in Canada.

Family pressure forced Bridget to return to Penang, where her father had arranged a marriage to a man of the Brahman caste. Walter had followed her and have been attempted to see Bridget without any success he had gone to their family compound on Leith Street. Howard and I had both advised against it. But the decision was Walter's and last night he walked away with stooped shoulders with very little hope of success.

"Bridget had told me to wait a year before coming over. I waited and then the phone calls and letters stopped. A month ago her father told me to never call again. My parents said to forget about her. I couldn't. I came despite everyone. Last night her father wouldn't even let me in the house. I couldn't even see Bridget. He said until she was married she was locked in her room. She is 27. How can she let this be done to her? I know she loves me. Last year in New York we spent a week together. Her father thought she was in Mumbai."

Walter and I exchanged a glance. Canada and the USA have basically left marrying out of your race color or creed behind, although Jews pretty much marry amongst themselves. My mother wanted me to marry a good Irish Catholic girl. I only found one and Hilde was too young. We are still friends.

"To come here I sold off all my things. I stopped my PhD studies. My mother cried and my father said I was no son of his. I gave up everything. Bridget has accepted the marriage offer of A 42-year-old man with two kids. Her father arranged a meeting and she flew to Geneva to meet him . They are getting married next month, but I contacted her suitor and told him that she was in love with me and that we had lived together for 5 years, so now Bridget has no one her only choice is me. Why can't her father see that?"

Walter and I remain silent.

We understood her father feared her daughter getting sullied by a forbidden caste. Not agreeing with that reality. Walter can't see his girlfriend's duplicity in this racist outcome. Living with Walter was fine in Canada, but she could never love him here.

"What can I do?"

"You go to see the Buddhist monks and ask them to intercede but I don't see any success in that. Talking to the Hindu priests is no good, as they believe in caste society." The separation of caste has been going on for thousands of years. "The monks can ask her does she really love you."

"I no she loves me. She said so so many times. I want to free her from her father."

"This isn't Romeo and Juliet. You will be killed, if you trying to escape with her," said Howard.

"Well, I am only left with killing him or killing me." His unhappiness was overwhelming," and I said, "Killing yourself is giving a victory to the father and you must think of yourself you're young. Your girlfriend doesn't want you to be Romeo and she doesn't want to be Juliet, You will meet somebody. Trust me I've had many girlfriends. And each time I thought it was over and I would never love again. I have loved again. No matter what happens, you have loved, and no one can take that love away from you."

Tears swelled in his eyes, as he recognized his defeat and I felt the scars of all the failed loves in my heart, and I still love all those that I have loved. Their names are many. And I remember them all as will Walter the name Bridget.

Thanks for your support. In order to avoid ads, please donate to blogger.com.mangozeen through Venmo. Any amount will help us. I do have a large family. My Venmo account is @Peter.Smith.18

Much more to come__ His voice

July 17, 1994 - Penang - Journal

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ERIN GO BALI 1990

My first trip to Bali was in 1990. Kuta Beach was the island's most popular tourist destination for sea, sun, and fun. Being a pseudo-intellectual I opted for Ubud, an idyllic village reknown for Legong dancers, ornate temples, and non-disco evenings in bamboo cafes playing Balinese trance music.

I rented a small house off the Monkey Forest Road surrounded by verdant rice paddies. My bedroom overlooked a ravine whose fragile stream served the village's bathing needs. Ketut the house boy served breakfast and instant coffee in the morning. I wrote on a Brother Electric Typewriter. At night croaking frogs accompanied the gamelan music from the Pura Dalem temple. There was no international phone service other than at the post office. Traveler’s checks and cash were the sole forms of monetary transactions.

At night I listened to the BBC World News on a Sony World Radio and read tattered used books. Dragonflies buzzed through the room and the stars tolerated no earthly rival. I loved Ubud and stayed in the town for months.

Nearing March 17th I suggested to several westerners or ‘mistahs’ that we should staged a St. Patrick’s Day parade. None of them had Hibernian roots. My Balinese friends were enthused at the idea of celebrating Ireland's patron saint by drinking beer.

"And we wear green."

My house servant Ketut shook his head.

“Can not wear green. This unlucky color.”

“Unlucky.” He had used the Bahasa word ‘blog’. I had never heard it before.

"Yes, my uncle he have green car have many accidents.”

"Green is good luck in Ireland and Ireland is the European Bali."

"Ireland tidak Bali. No green and you not wear green too." Tuut was adamant about this edict, but said, "We drink beer and make music."

"That is good luck?"

"Drink beer always good luck."

Especially if a 'mistah' paid for it. I didn't argue with tradition and adjusted St. Patrick's Day in accordance with local customs.

On March 17th Ketut, his friend, and I drank Bintang beer at the Cafe Bali. They brought drums. I sang Irish ballads of British oppression and at sunset we marched down Monkey Forest Road with me singing BY THE RISING OF THE MOON. I adlibed the words.

Ketut said it was a sweet song.

“By the rising of the moon, by the rising of the moon, the pikes must be together at the rising of the moon."

Other Balinese joined the march. No one wore green. We trooped back to the Cafe Bali and switched from beer to 'arak', a strong palm wine. It wasn't as strong as Jamison's Whiskey, but it was a good drink for the first St. Patrick's Day in Ubud and I told Tuut, "Maybe one day you will wear green."

"Maybe a long time away from today."

"But not as far as never. Semoga Beruntung."

I thought that meant good luck and replied, "Go n-éirí an bóthar leat!"

At least I thought I said that.

Everyone clinked beer glasses.

I hadn't worn green either. It was bad luck in Bali and Indonesia in general since the color signified exorcism and infidelity. Satan was not in my soul and I was faithful to the world. The Wearing of the Green had to wait to someplace else.

It's a color close to my heart. Erin go bagh.

ps this was originally written in 2013

February 10, 1991 Biak - Indonesia - Journal

Larry Smith the famed diver, is not on Biak. I went down to his ship again. It seems out of commission with only a Javanese mate on board. Andi explained that the engine had crapped out and Larry and his wife had flown to Surabaya for some parts.   

    "When are they back."

Andi shrugged and sucked on his Kretek cigarette, content to be alone. I left him thus, understanding the beauty of aloneness after working thirty days straight on West 47th Street selling jewelry for my boss, Manny.

Surabaya is a famed seaport on the eastern tip of Java. Last year I had thought about stopping there on my way from Mount Bromo to visit the harbor filled with Bugis prahus and the infamous Gang Dolly, reputed to be Southeast Asia’s largest red-light district, a 200 meter-long street offering wickedness with snake aphrodisiacs and magic sex workers from Madura, but decided to stay on the train to Yogjakarta.   

I walked away from the boat and stopped at a small restaurant for nasi goreng, a popular Indonesian dish of stir-fried brown rice spiced with kecap manis (sweet soy sauce), shallot, garlic, ground shrimp paste, tamarind and chili topped by a fried egg. Siting there I read my Rough Guide about trekking through Irian Jaya. I feel like flying to Jayapura, the province's largest city, on the main island and heading up to the Baliem valley for a hike through the Highlands, inspired by the book FIRST CONTACT. Rough Guide suggests a flight up into the mountains, then hiring a guide to wander through the Stone Age culture. It's dangerous since most villages don't like the village nearest them. Land encroachments and women instigate deadly conflicts with them eating the dead without anyone ever telling the Javanese police. What happens in the Baliem Valley stays in the Baliem Valley. A flight to Jayapura is only $50 round trip.

I hankered it to see the cannibal tribes. I've always been haunted the Michael C Rockefeller wing at the Metropolitan Museum featuring Asmat sculptures from this land of islands beyond the Modern Age. My only contact with the people here are seeing them walking by naked men with a gourd over their penis. They are completely comfortable in their skin without any clothing. No shame about offending civilized foreigners; Javanese or missionaries. Like this is us. We cool with it.

They don't even bother with flip flops are feet walking on the shoulder of the road rather than the sun-baked pavement. I can't walk barefoot on stones.

After this late breakfast I returned to the hotel and walked down to the sea with my snorkel, fins, and diving mask. There is no real beach, but a shallow coral ledge leading out to an underwater cliff. I wear a tee-shirt against the sun even though it's cloudy. The sun is very strong here and I don't like suntan lotion. I slip on my diving gear and stash my sneakers under a rock, so they don't drift Away. I walk backwards and plunge over the cliff, and dove down twenty feet into an explosion of parrot fish nibbling at the coral, spitting out the rocks. Scores of other fish, small and large, which I can identify swarm the coral face. I swim against the drift current to maintain my place, suddenly realizing that if I get back on the reef I'll have no idea where my shoes are. After a minute I broke the surface. The sea is smooth. I can see the islands in the distance. It's not a sunny day and the sea,  the islands in the sky, and the clouds all seem to be varying shades of blue gray. I can't even define the colors. Shoreward coconut trees lift over the land and buildings mark the main road leading to town. I I orient my position and be one with the sea. A half hour later, I find my sneakers. No one would steal them. My foot is too large for the Javanese and the locals don't wear shoes. 

This is the life.

I'm glad I asked John from Panda Express Travel a year ago when looking at the itinerary, "What's Biak?"

Now I know.

Geadig back to the hotel once again I ask myself, "Why did I ever go to Europe when this was waiting?"

February 9, 1990 - Biak, Indonesia - Journal

Night has fallen and the rain has stopped pounding on the tin roofs. I'm lying in the hotel room. Overhead fan cools the room. I haven't shut it off since my arrival. It's hot here. LA was in the 60s. Oahu 70s. New York was cold. Winter cold. Snow cold. Nothing  like here. 80s during the day. 70s at night. Sweltering hot like my trip to Mazatlán in 1975.

I spent the night reading First Contact by Bob Connolly and Robin Anderson, recounting two white men's first incursion into the Papua New Guinea Highlands in the 1930s. According to the writers the Melanesians first arrived in these parts across an Ice Age land bridge natives about 40,000 years ago, maybe even more, who can trust white man science? I wanted to ask them, if they are a lost tribe from deepest Africa, but they don't resemble anyone genetically other than themselves. They are their own race. In the book author encountered about the white men with Dead return from death for strange gods who treated them as potential slave, buying loyalties with shells addiction tobacco, in the fear of the Dum Dum bullet. This was the last great frontier. Still is across the waters on the mainland, which is one of the biggest islands in the world. Here I am. Beer in hand on the edge of the world. 

I've met two American MD's on their way to the Highlands of Irian Jaya, , a Texas skin diver Larry Smith in his Indonesian girlfriend, Other than six drunk Japanese veterans of World War II. I'm basically the only tourist

Reading the rough guides Indonesian handbook chapter on Irian Jaya makes me want to forego the next leg to Bali and flying over to Jayapura and then up to the Bellamy Valley, but that would have to wait for another time, although the chances of me coming back this way to beak at the end of the world a slim.

I've been writing North North Hollywood, but not that much.

If I had an extra $500 I'd fly to Jaipur maybe next year, because I really like this archipelago of Indonesia after only two days.

So far the trip has been in success. I accomplished everything I wanted to do in LA. I saw Nina Smith. We had a night out. I got drunk as did she. We tried to make love in her car. I couldn't get it up. As much as I wanted her.

I saw Monty. Who's doing well at Propaganda Films. We were friendly. I thought he might be angry with me for asking for money, when he asked me to look at a Bentley Conti in London last year. I learned a lesson. Never ask the rich for money. You have to wait for them to offer it. The old boy from Atlanta wants me to come up with a Lethal Weapon script. He offered me a room in LA. But I'm not really into writing scripts and I want to finish North North Hollywood, which would make a great movie. I thank them for the offer and said I'd contact him. 

Sadly I couldn't get in touch with Sharon, because her husband's mother explained that after she left my place last year she got into dope very badly. She was fucking young men in the neighborhood, stealing from them and anybody else, the mother-in-law threw her out after she almost burnt down the house. She went through her her father's death money pretty quick. The mother-in-law didn't hold it against her. She had lost both her husband and son to drugs. She's not bad. She's just a junkie. But I don't really want to see her for a long time "Do you want her number?" asked the mother-in-law.

I thought about it for a second and said, I'll see you, when she gets better."

Such is the power of pornography to ruin people's lives no way do I want North North Hollywood to glorify porno as much as I like pictures of naked women, big cocks, and cum. 

Erotica. Is what I'm talking about hardcore. I kissed Nina and I want to write a scene about our near sex scene in her backseat. She was the first woman I kissed in ages, but who knows what tomorrow brings? Nothing in Biak.

Tonight I'm alone with the sound of the fan overhead in the hotel kick you

Lost in Erie and Jaya.

February 6, 1990 - Biak - Journal

Yesterday I left Cousin Johnny in Honolulu. No more drinking at the Hotel Street bars. No more Femme Nu Go Go. So far New York to Los Angeles to Hawaii. Last week I picked up my Garuda tickets at Pan Express' LA downtown office. LA-Honolulu-Biak-overland to Jakarta and then Sumatra-Singapore-train to Bangkok, where I'm meant to pick up my onward tickets to Nepal, Paris, and London. Two legs of my trip around the world completed. More to come. No more Hawaii. LA with volcanoes, but only one freeway. I stayed with Cousin Johnny in his college dorm and his roommate, who was obsessed with Jamie Lee Curtis. Who isn't?

Cousin Johnny drove me to the airport. "What's in Biak?"

"I don't know. My travel agent had said that no one going to Bali ever got off there. My Uncle Dave had served on a destroyer during the Battle of Biak. He never went ashore. His ship kept the island under bombardment for a week." "Japs didn't want to give up."

His father Carmine back in the East Village was a WWII buff.

That evening Cousin Johnny said goodbye at the Honolulu airport and I boarded the Garuda flight across the Pacific. I had never been this far from the East Coast. Not Paris. Not the Yucatan. Hawaii 4700 miles from New York. The Garuda flight took off on time. Every miles farther from the known world.

The 747 landed on the long runway, low on fuel after a long trans-Pacific flight. Beyond the tarmac jungle and a small terminal. Biak, an island off the coast of Irian Jaya. 9100 miles from New York. It had been deep winter back there. LA and Hawaii had been warm. The tropical heat hit the passengers, as we descended the air stairs. Easily 90, as was to be expected sixty miles south of the equator. Once more on Earth. Hundreds of Bali-bound tourists stretched their legs, as black as night Melanesian musicians, naked except for a gourd over their penises strummed BY THE RIVERS OF BABYLON on their guitars.

Their ancestors had obviously migrated from Africa sometime before the last Ice Age, when the shrinkage of the oceans created land bridges to connect these future islands to what is now Asia. A fat Christian missionary ignored the musicians to be greet tribal bible thumpers. The tourists went into the air-conditioned gift shop. The man of God traversed the tarmac to a single-engine prop plane. Biak was the epitome of remote, however the Christian was bound for a destination unknown to everyone other than the airport's traffic controllers, the pilot, him and his God. Once he was aboard the plane sped down the runway and took to the sky. Time from leaving the 747 to lift-off about ten minutes.

When I purchased the ticket from Pan Express I asked John, the owner, "What is Biak?"

He said, "It was where the plane has to stop there to refuel. In Irian Jaya. The Indonesian part of Papua New Guinea."

A land of naked headhunters. In 1961 the Asmats on the south shore of the island had eaten Michael C. Rockefeller. A rich man's son. The Metropolitan Museum had a wing of Melanesian wooden sculpture dedicated to him. I always went there. No one else did. Just like here. Biak. I passed through immigration to have my passport stamped for an Indonesia by a Javanese official. Good for three months. Biak and many islands through the vast archipelago were in the process of transmigrasi or shipping Javanese by the thousands to populate distant islands to deal with extreme overcrowding on Java.

Exiting the terminal into the midday sun I put on my sunglasses. Javanese motorcycle taxi drivers sought my traffic. I surveyed the street. Palm trees wavered in the air. Pick-up trucks and motor scooters cruised Jalan Mohammad Yamin.

Across the street bordering the bay was an old Dutch hotel. ROUGH GUIDE suggested staying there and I hefted my bag over my shoulder. I was sweating bullets by the time I reached the check-in counter. A room per night was $10. I paid for five nights and asked for a cold beer to be brought to my room.

A double bed and a overhead fan. Clean, but the tropics had been hard on the walls. Still the sheets were crisp clean and a cold beer arrived shortly. After tipping the waiter 2000 rupiah I changed into shorts and walked out to the deck. Cold beer in hand. I sat at the table and unfolded the Nelles map. Beyond the lawn Yappen Island floated on a slate blue sea. Clouds rolled in from the west. The promise of rain on the wind. This island lay beyond the Orient. I sipped the beer. Biak, Indonesia. So far away from everything. Why had I never come here before? Why had I gone to Paris? I took a long pull for the Bintang beer. No answers. They didn't matter now. I was here now. A light breeze wafted from the shore. The air smelled of jasmine. Night was coming my way. I turned on my Sony Radio to the BBC. It was my only contact with the Western World and I fell asleep happy to be someplace far beyond the reach of the West.

February 7, 1990 - Biak - Indonesia -Journal

I woke up this morning to the muezzin calling out the morning prayer. He has a good baritone. A Strange for Islam to have conquered the world, until understanding the simplicity of Islam. Only five rules, yet the animists resisted the call of the Koran until falling for Jesus. The cannibals must have seen the nailed god as a victim for sacrifice.

I sat on the teakwood veranda offering a fantastic view of Cenderawasih Bay, reading standard Bahasa Indonesian phrases. Joseph Conrad would have felt at home on this patio and I imagined him having passed through this way back in the 19th Century. My Uncle David had fought here in the Battle of the Sump. His destroyer had shelled the Japanese fortifications on the shore. This hotel showed no scars of that combat.

Slightly after dawn I sat out on the veranda and someone knocked on the door. I answered it. A young waiter brought in a tray loaded with my breakfast. I sat on the veranda and he pulled off the white cotton serving cloth to reveal fried eggs, bacon, and sliced bread.

“Terima Kasih.” That was ‘thank you’ in Bahasa Indonesian.

I tasted the bread. It was surprisingly better than Wonder Bread and I ate every slice thinking that this had to be the last slice bread in town, however the following morning the waiter returned with a tray of soft white bread. Each slice was a uniform 12 mm thick.

Sliced bread was not an anomaly on Biak.

Later

After breakfast I walked to the Japanese caves. In 1943 over four thousand Imperial soldiers refused to surrender to the Marines, who had had it with the incessant raids and sniping and Banzai charges.

Today I descended the stairs into the cave and stood on the muddy floor looking up ropey veins hanging from the rim to the surface. I imagined the stubbornness of these trapped soldiers. Ammo gone, food gone, hope gone. They stood shoulder to shoulder praying for the eternal wellness for Emperor Hirohito, thousands of miles away in Tokyo. The Marines showed no mercy to a merciless enemy. They poured aviation fuel into the caves and threw in a Zippo to ignite the fuel and burnt them all for the Emperor. Banzai.

Emerald vegetation mass covered the once blackened cave and small birds flitted hole to hole. Their homes shelter for the lost souls of the fire storm. I climbed back out and saw several veterans, who survived the battle of Biak and returned to the caves to pay their respects to the dead. I was the only one American today. I nodded in respect and thought crazy mother-fuckers.

Biak is only one of the thousand battles of World War II and millions and maybe more millions died in these islands cut off from help by the US elite and hunted by the Marines. 150,000 died in Papua New Guinea. Lost forever. It was a good morning to be alive and I returned to the Dutch Hotel to drink beer on the veranda. Forever a peacenik.

Crossing the Inner Harbor - 2025

I haven't stepped on the continental United States in over a year. A world traveler health, finances, and a job in Montauk have stranded me on Manhattan and Long Island, basically Clinton Hill and Montauk, where I work as a jewelry salesmen at Winick Jewelry at 771 Montauk Highway. occasionally I ride the East River and Staten Island to take a break from the land. A pleasure albeit short voyages. Thirty minutes each. Not really going anywhere, but for traveler travel was never about the destination. At least not until the arrival to wherever was there, although crrtainly not the St. George terminal. I know it well.

Koh Samui Paradise 1991

From 2008

My annual visits to Koh Samui throughout the 1990s consisted of a train ride down from Bangkok to Surathani. There was no plane. A ferry ride over to the island. Booking a beach bungalow at Coral Cove and renting a Honda MTX 125cc motorbike to get round the island. Chaweng Beach was the prettiest stretch of sand in the Gulf of Siam. There were no hotels and the fanciest bungalows were located at the Jungle. The only nightclub was the reggae bar, but there were plenty of places for drinks.

One night I met two French people at a fish restaurant. We went to Chaweng Beach for drinks. They had some speed pills. We did two each. The effect was almost immediate. To counteract the jitters I downed a Valium. The combination of speed, downers, and Mekong defied my usual excellent sense of personal chemistry.

I recall going to the bar and ordering drinks for everyone.

After that I vaguely remember someone telling me I couldn't drive.

Then lights out.

Well past midnight I woke up on a sagging table in the alley behind the bar. It was raining. I was dry. My bike was in the sand. My keys were in my pocket. So was my wallet. The only thing missing was an 18K ring, which might have been given to a girl. Something like that.

I was lucky.

I could have gotten on the bike and driven back to the Coral Cove.

I don't think I would have made it.

That was my one drug experience on Koh Samui.

It was more than enough.

Toujours Siam

From 2011

Thirty-five years ago I sold a 5-FSI1 Round Brilliant Diamond to a woman from Florida. She was purchasing the ring for her mother. When asked to ship the present to Miami Beach via Fedex, my boss refused to accommodate the woman's request, fearing the diamond might get lost in transit. The customer was driven to tears by his harsh manner and his son, Richie Boy, berated his 62 year-old father for his intransigence. The sale was on the line. My commish was $4000. Manny finally relented after several hours, cursing us out and saying once the woman left the exchange, "You guys are soft as shit. She was only crying to get her way. Women are good that way."

Manny's harsh assessment was the direct descendant of Cato's famous quote, "When a woman weeps, she is setting traps with her tears."

I had seen enough women cry to know both Manny and Cato were right, but decided to celebrate the sale with a trip around the world. I had read an advertisement in the Sunday NY Times from PanExpress Travel.

$1350 for flights from JFK to LA to Honolulu to Biak to Bali then travel by train to Jakarta and fly to Sumatra across the Malacca Straits to Malaysia to catch a train to Thailand and then up into Nepal for a trek in the Himalayas before straight-lining through Paris and London to New York.

"How long you going for?" Richie Boy asked a week prior to my departure.

"Five to six months." I was planning on writing a book on pornography in LA. It was based on my cousin Sherri's life in film. She had starred in over 2000 XXX movies. Every male in America knew her name.

"There's no way your job going to be here when you get back." Richie Boy and I went back to my years as a doorman at a punk disco on West 62nd Street. Our friendship of twenty years meant nothing on 47th Street. He had a business to run.

"I wouldn't expect it to be." The title of my novel was NORTH NORTH HOLLYWOOD. It was bound for the NY Times bestseller list. I'd never have to work as a wage slave again.

I sublet my apartment to a Swedish male nurse. Scandinavians were very dependable and my profit on the sublet was $300/month. I bought a Rough Guide book for South East Asia on the way to JFK. The Lonely Planet travel books said that a backpacker could live on $10/day. My budget was $40/day. The money from my subleasee was my beer budget. The guidebooks said beer was cheap out East.

And they weren't wrong.

I bought big bottles of beer for everyone on the route. A $5 a day backpacker in Bali said I was living like a pasha, an Ottoman noble. I added the letter sea and became Pascha. Nothing like a new name on a voyage. I celebrated St. Patrick's Day in Bali with a marching Legong band. Dawn on the rim of Mt. Bromo. Smoking pot on the shores of Sumatra's Lake Toba. Drinking whiskey with Chinese whores in Malaysia. The entire trip had been an eye-opener and I boarded a train north for Thailand opposite Penang in Georgetown. A German woman was my company. We were just friends headed for the fabled beaches of Koh Samui.

Palm trees, white sands, and gin-clear water.

Ilsa and I got off the train in Surathani around midnight. The last ferry had left the harbor thirty minutes earlier. Most of the backpackers were sleeping on the pier. Ilsa and I taxied off to a hotel. We planned on catching the next cargo ferry tomorrow.

$20/night for an aircon room with TV.

A host of beautiful bargirls greeted my entrance to the lobby with cries of 'hey, handsome'. They sounded like they really meant it and I abandoned Ilsa who wanted to catch the dawn ferry to Koh Samui.

"I'm just going to have a beer." I was 38. My wallet was filled with baht. Three of the girls looked like Suzie Wong. I went upstairs with one of them. Her name was Porn. We stayed together five days. She actually cried when I finally headed over to Koh Samui .

Thailand really was a paradise and I wish I was there now.

With my wife, Mem, and our son, Fenway and the rest of our family and mine, because I have two wives. Nu and Angie and my grandson, Sunsun. I will asked Mem if I was handsome.

"Sure, you handsome, like your son." She loves her kids and me some of the time. Same as Nu. Mostly when I'm here, even if it's for a short time, because Richie Boy and Manny are waiting in New York. For all their talk I always have my job and Thailand is always paradise.

The Thai word for Eden is sa-wan. Of course na-lok is the word for hell. And I've been in hell here too, but not today.

March 6 1991 - Palu, Sulawesi - Journal

After a week's diving on Bunaken I was lucky enough to catch the KM Karuna from Bitung, the port for Manado, at the top of Sulawesi. The liner cruised the jungled shore heading east to Borneo. The German-built ship is spacious and only one other Mistah is aboard. A Dutchman. Even after fourhundred years of harsh rule, the Indonesian don't seem to hold a grudge against this Netherlander. Hans and I drink beer with his friend. They are traveling deck class and sleeping outside. Heading to Borneo.

The Gulf War has scared away all the tourists even backpackers from this Muslim country. NO one has bothered me since Ternate. Saddam is losing the war. People have accept the defeat.

I have a four-bed stateroom to myself on the portside. I stand at the railing with my Nell's map picking out the small settlements. I stare through my binoculars. All the bigger villages seem the same. A mosque, a police station, and people going about their day. None of them pay attention to the KM Karuna. Only the minarets are taller than the palms. Inland the mountains are covered with thick forests. Most of the houses are on stilts.

I'm traveling second-class. Comfortable. Around sunset the ship veers west from land into the sunset and we cross the sea heading to Kalimantan or eastern Borneo. Night falls and I stand at the stern watching the stars. I wish I had a book of constellation.

A little past midnight the liner pulls into Balikpapan, an old Bugis village transformed by the oil book. About 200 passengers came off until bright lights. The Dutchman got off. I am the only Westerner here. No storms unlike the crossing from Ternate to Bitung. Smooth sailing. Drinking beer, listening to the music from the Muslim passengers, their prayers at dawn. That night the only lights at sea was a of this line passing of this liner.

Landfall was in Tawaeli the next morning. A few hundred passengers got off and I shared a taxi heading south to Palu, where I would catch a bus up to Lake Poso. The Rough Guide has been a good travel companion and my Indonesian has been improving with every twon and city. We drove down the coast. Across the bay small mountains ran north to south. I got a small room clean and quiet. Nobody bothered to say hey mister. This is not really one of the top tourist destinations in Sulawesi.

Being on the equator it was hot and swampy. I bought a ticket for the lake and walked to the beach. The mountains behind the town were thick jungles. Palu is right on the equator. The sun fell at 6:00 and I went to eat at a Chinese restaurant. Food was sweet and salty. A Chinese woman took the stage and sang a love song in Cantonese. Looking back at the video of Hong Kong, she cried wishing she was in China or even Jakarta instead of in a backwater town of Sulawesi. The staff asked, if I wanted to sing a song. By saying Big Bad Leroy Brown. Everyone laughed. I was the only silly Western in here and I felt good.

A Bigger Broom - Tioman Island 1993

In 1993 I went to Tioman island in Malaysia. beautiful beach. remote. jungle. A Western woman came into the restaurant crying that a lizard was in her bathroom. I laughed thinking it was a gecko and grabbed a broom. I went to her bungalow and opened the bathroom to discover a giant monitor lizard over a meter long. I slammed shut the door and said, "I need a bigger broom."

Getting Away

Last week my associate Shamus suggested that I accompany him to the Continent.

"Are you doing anything special?"

"Not that I can think of?" I hadn't worked since Christmas, but the previous week a diamond sale had filled my coffers.

"London, the Maarstricht Art Fair, Bruxelles, and Paris." It was a tempting offer.

"Count me in." I was a sucker for Europe. "How many days?"

"At tops five, but you can stay longer, if you want."

"No, five is fine for me." Another diamond sale the following week would help my cause.

"Then I'll book the flights."

And like that my long stay in the New York City penal colony came to an end.

Over a year without going anywhere.

I could hardly wait.